The way to your guests' hearts is through their stomachs

While anyone can go into the Yellow Pages and find an available caterer with the usual fare, more and more couples want their wedding menu to delight as well as sustain. Chances are, your guests are just as tired of the standard chicken-fish-or-steak options on a wedding menu as you are — so why not make it a day to remember for more reasons than one?

By Stephanie Leombruno

The Herald News, Fall River, MA

By Stephanie Leombruno

Posted Oct. 27, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Updated Oct 27, 2011 at 3:21 AM

By Stephanie Leombruno

Posted Oct. 27, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Updated Oct 27, 2011 at 3:21 AM

Fall River

» Social News

While anyone can go into the Yellow Pages and find an available caterer with the usual fare, more and more couples want their wedding menu to delight as well as sustain. Chances are, your guests are just as tired of the standard chicken-fish-or-steak options on a wedding menu as you are — so why not make it a day to remember for more reasons than one?

Just like the venue or the dress, the choice of food at the wedding can be a creative opportunity for a couple to express their personality. Living in close vicinity to both Providence and Boston allows the Greater Taunton and Greater Fall River area incredible access to catering options from every tradition and ethnicity. Whether it’s food from a Chinese, Indian, Ethiopian or vegan restaurant, or from the restaurant where they met, couples can tailor their wedding reception to reflect their personal tastes. For those with a somewhat open budget, personal chefs of every culinary discipline will happily create a menu with the couple.

Many options have become available for couples who want the catering to come to them, or at least to watch the meal come together. Guests can smell and watch the food as it cooks, and the quality of the food doesn’t suffer from a delivery ride or a reheat.

A popular option for this type of catering is barbecue. Plymouth-based T-Bones Roadhouse has won numerous awards and been named a “hidden jewel” by the Phantom Gourmet. Menu choices range from $9.95 a person to $19.95 a person and include sides like pecan rice pilaf and corn succotash in addition to the range of barbecued meats. Dedham-based Tex’s BBQ Express has packages ranging from $11 per person to $29 per person, and can grill at both indoor and outdoor venues. Pawtucket-based B&M Catering takes alternative catering to a whole new level, offering on-site Carolina-style whole pig roasts, Hawaiian-style whole pig roasts, and an “islander” style menu with items like Jamaican jerk pork and grilled mahi mahi in addition to traditional barbeque.

B&M Catering also offers another huge trend native to the area: Cape Cod-style clambakes. While B&M’s business is to ship the finished clambake to the venue, companies like Clambakes Etc. bring the whole clambake process to your door. Based in Osterville, the company can come to the reception venue and either dig a pit to cook the clambake, or make it pot-style. Lobster, New England clam chowder and Cape Cod steamers are just a few of the menu items that make this clambake a truly local affair.

For those couples who wish to shed light on the sustainable and local food movement, the Webber Restaurant Group offers “farm-to-fork” catering options. The company uses as many local farms and sources as possible for their seven restaurants/catering services, but couples have the additional option of getting married at the picturesque verdant hills of the company’s main farm in Groton, Gibbet Hill. The Webber Group also offers the Fruitlands Museum in the town of Harvard as a wedding venue. Like Gibbet Hill, the Fruitlands Museum offers stunning views of orchards and forests, and overlooks the Nashoba Valley.

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While choosing a caterer can seem like a daunting task, the opportunity for couples to make their menu as unique as they are is well worth the effort. With the abundant choices of fresh, local food and scenic venues in the area, your wedding can be a day cherished as much for its menu as for its memories.